4:29 PM
by Giratina
Summary: 4:29 PM  noun : the time after lunch and before dinner. The time for friends, food, and fun for those who belong in Twilight Town - and no one else.


_Another entry for the 100-Theme Challenge. Are you sick of me yet?  
_

_- Gira  
_

* * *

The world was in a lull.

Hayner was chomping violently on his ice cream, occasionally throwing in mumbled bits of ideas (all of which would be used to humiliate Seifer). Pence was getting the ideas bounced off of him, offering his own little tidbits every so often, all of which were mentioned by Hayner previously but which he forgot about in his musing state. Olette was sitting there, laughing, watching the boys tussle. She was wearing that same flimsy smile she always wore, and to the cloaked figure watching from the rafters, he saw something he never had before: it was so fake. So fake. To the cloaked one, she looked like she was only doing this because she had nothing else to do; she would rather be somewhere else, with someone else, someone who didn't have a one track mind (Cloak Guy's eyes flew to Hayner), or someone so oblivious that he wasn't even that (to Pence)… and, well, she got her wish. Kind of. One of them had left.

Despite himself, the person gave a mirthless laugh, and not even a second later realized all the problems that posed – among them, that everyone was now looking at him. That wasn't good.

Climbing out of the room, and into the red-stained world outside, it was just as he knew it was. This whole place fit the memory bank exactly. The backup had, as promised, been exactly as it was back in the day.

He hated it.

It was supposed to be a good memory trip; he went in, walked around a little, went out. He was locked in this virtual hell, so he might as well enter an area he was supposed to know, right?

Wrong.

The hooded boy knew himself, too – he knew himself, and he knew that he shouldn't have entered this datascape in the first place. It had been a long time ago he first entered this world, and much to his dismay, he had found that he could not leave afterward; but showing himself to them, well, they would hate him. And, to be honest, he hated them too. All he had now was this black cloak and a few weapons, formations of data meant to represent a great and holy weapon.

Yeah, right. If they were so great, why couldn't they unlock the way out of here?

He turned back to the hole leading to Olette, Pence, and Hayner's place. The digital entity kneeled down again, not going in fully… just watching.

"Look at the time!" Pence squawked.

"4:29," remarked Hayner. "And?"

"This is… this is the time of day," Pence continued. "We all decided on 4:29 PM, remember? It was important. We were all supposed to do… something."

He knew this one too.

"Oh, that's right," remarked Olette. "We were supposed to go to the Clocktower today, right? To eat our ice cream up there. That was what we're supposed to do on Tuesdays. Doesn't anyone else remember that?"

Pence and Hayner nodded slowly. "Oh yeah," said the former. "When did we decide that, anyway?"

"I dunno, but it wasn't me." Hayner shrugged.

"Not me, either," said Olette, leaning back against her crate. "And it wasn't you, Pence, right?" The boy in question shook his head.

"So… that's weird," said Hayner thoughtfully (!). "We know we have to do it, but we don't know who decided it, and when? Creepy… but do you guys want to do it anyway? I mean, it's the Clocktower. And it's not like we don't have enough money for more ice cream." He patted the box sitting next to him proudly; it contained the pooled sea-salt funding of the group for the past few weeks.

Everyone nodded, until… "Oh! I remember who it was," she said. "It was… it was… _! Right?"

There was a silence.

"_… _… that was his name…" said Olette weakly.

"Quit joking with us, Olette," said Hayner. "Say it or don't."

"…I…I lost it," she whimpered. "Sorry. But… we can still go, right?"

A few seconds later, they had grabbed the sea-salt funding box and left the area. So that was it… this wasn't a perfect copy after all. There was something removed from everyone's memories. Something very important, in his opinion. They wouldn't have known him, anyway. That settled it, then: he was trapped in this replica of Twilight Town, locked in with a bunch of people who wouldn't even be able to be friendly while he looked like someone else, anyway.

Data Roxas cursed loudly, and ran when they turned around.


End file.
